Author JK Rowling has found herself in hot water yet again due to tweets that invalidate trans people. It all started when she aired her support for a researcher who lost her job due to transphobic tweets.

Rowling took offense at a headline for an article that went, “Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.”

“‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people,” Rowling tweeted on Saturday evening. “Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Yikes.

Now, Harry Potter actor, Daniel Radcliffe is being praised across social media for taking a stand against Rowling and airing his support for trans women in a powerful open letter published on the Trevor Foundation website.

While acknowledging that Rowling was “unquestionably responsible” for his career success, Radcliffe stated that “he felt compelled to say something,” at the risk of the media painting the situation as “in-fighting between J.K. Rowling and myself.”

“Transgender women are women,” Radcliffe writes in the letter. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”

“To all the people who now feel that their experience of the [‘Harry Potter’] books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you,” Radcliffe adds. “I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you … if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion nobody can touch that.”

(Header credits: Wikimedia Commons)